Mirrors - Portrait of a Lesbian Transsexual

This is a new, revised edition of the cult classic "Mirrors - Portrait of a Lesbian Transsexual" by Geri Nettick as told to Beth Elliott, in which Beth Elliott steps out from behind her pseudonym to claim her place in lesbian/trans activist history. The new appendix, which is the first major critical essay on the 1973 West Coast Lesbian Conference at UCLA, places Elliott's now-famous expulsion from the Daughters of Bilitis in the context of the takeover of the lesbian movement by feminists for whom "lesbian" was to be a purely political identity, as opposed to a matter of passionate, intimate and committed female bonding.

In the Spring after the Stonewall Riots, a California teenager began a journey that shattered the boundaries of sexual identity. When Beth Elliott became the very first to transition from male to female to be an out lesbian, she rocked the newly above-ground LGBT world—and it rocked her back. Historians and sexologists now routinely relate how radical dyke feminists drove her out of the nation’s first lesbian rights organization, the Daughters of Bilitis, in 1972. Her only chance to tell her own story came a dozen years later, at the urging of a magazine editor who had pulled her off the blacklist. This powerful and stunning personal narrative, disguised as an “as told to” autobiography for safety’s sake, became an underground classic. Emerging from the woodwork at the request of pioneering lesbian activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, Beth Elliott shared her story for a history of the Daughters of Bilitis (later published as the book Different Daughters). This time, her standing in her local lesbian community only rose. So now, she reintroduces Mirrors – Portrait of a Lesbian Transsexual. With a bow to her alter egos Geri Nettick of Mirrors and Mustang Sally of TransSisters: A Journal of Transsexual Feminism, this courageous queer feminist pioneer once again gives voice to her life’s powerful inspirational message: Be true to yourself and keep moving forward to freedom, even when the world says who you are is impossible. This is a new, revised edition of the cult classic "Mirrors - Portrait of a Lesbian Transsexual" by Geri Nettick as told to Beth Elliott, in which Beth Elliott steps out from behind her pseudonym to claim her place in lesbian/trans activist history. The new appendix, which is the first major critical essay on the 1973 West Coast Lesbian Conference at UCLA, places Elliott's now-famous expulsion from the Daughters of Bilitis in the context of the takeover of the lesbian movement by feminists for whom "lesbian" was to be a purely political identity, as opposed to a matter of passionate, intimate and committed female bonding.

Beth Elliott is a San Francisco Bay Area-born writer, musician and activist focused on women’s rights issues. In the early 1970s, she served as vice-president of the San Francisco chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis, served on the board of directors of the California Committee for Sexual Law Reform, and was a founding member of the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club. The author of the original edition of “Mirrors: Portrait of a Lesbian Transsexual” and the satirical lesbian time-travel novel “Don’t Call It ‘Virtual,’” she was a regular contributor to “Telewoman,” “TransSisters,” the “Bay Area Reporter,” and other lesbian, gay and feminist publications. Her essays supporting and advocating for the diversity of woman-loving women were published in the anthologies “Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out” and “Closer to Home: Bisexuality and Feminism.” In addition to public relations copywriting for a number of not-for-profit projects, Elliott handled communications for Applied Space Resources, Inc. and HitComedy.com. In 2005, Elliott re-engineered a number of earlier live and studio recordings, and recorded two new songs, for a "checkered career retrospective" CD titled "Buried Treasure." The CD and individual track mp3s are available from cdbaby.com. Beth Elliott has now lived in Oakland, California for most of her adult life. An avid softball player and hiker, she has traveled the world chasing and photographing solar eclipses. She is the historian and genealogist for her long-time California family, which has welcomed this wayward daughter back to its bosom.